In hearings before the House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said, in an opening
remark nominally addressed to BP CEO Tony Hayward, “I
am ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think
it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private
corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a
shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown.” Other
Republicans in and out of office, such as
Michele Bachman are making similar comments
about the lack of due process involved in arm-twisting (or
arm-breaking) BP into putting aside $20 billion into an escrow
account.
Barton added: “With the Attorney General of the United
States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation
and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the
American people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion
slush fund that’s unprecedented in American history, that’s got
no legal standing, (it) sets a terrible precedent for the
future.”
I am rarely at a loss for words, but I was briefly stunned
into silence by Barack Obama’s words during his Tuesday night
speech that he would “inform” BP’s CEO that he “is to” create an
escrow account. The president has no authority to do such a thing
— but neither did he have authority to cram down Chrysler and GM
bond holders for the benefit of the UAW. Law is irrelevant,
probably not even considered as an afterthought, by this
president.
BP is not a victim here. They’re not in the least bit
sympathetic. But this is the nation that presumes innocence
before guilt, that is founded on the rule of law rather than of
men. How strange it is that we elected a president who wants to
give terrorist murderers the benefit of the doubt, give them
access to legal protections they’re not even entitled to, but
treats a major international corporation — which had already
said it would pay all legitimate claims — the way Al Capone
treated a rival moonshine distributor. One can almost picture
Barack Obama walking behind BP executives with a bat in his
hand.
Of course, even Al Capone had his fans, and one of those
would apparently have been Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), who said of
BP being coerced into the escrow arrangement (with the money to
be disbursed by a recent employee of Barack Obama’s — hardly
an
independent third party) that “this is the American
government working at its best.” (While I was initially tempted
to ask rhetorically “I wonder what working at its worst would
look like,” it seems pretty clear that we saw that with what the
Democrats did to pass Obamacare.)
In his testimony, BP CEO Tony Hayward said he was
“personally devastated” and that attending the memorial service
for the people who lost their lives on the rig was a “shattering
moment.” He seemed sincere, but will for many months face serious
questions about BP’s apparent corner-cutting in safety spending
on the Deepwater Horizon. The answers to these questions are
likely to cost BP billions of dollars more in fines and
penalties, in addition to their civil liability. Even so, Hayward
and BP do not deserve to be treated worse than terrorists and, no
matter how angry people are and how much BP is demonized, America
must remain a nation based on the rule of law, not the law of
Obama.
